Empowering advocacy through data is key to driving meaningful impact in customer marketing. 

I’m Sarah Stephan, Head of Customer Marketing at Databricks, and my decade of experience in customer advocacy has taught me the immense value of aligning efforts with measurable outcomes. 

From my time at Cisco and Nutanix to my current role, I’ve seen how leveraging data and KPIs can transform how we prioritize, optimize, and showcase the work we do. 

In this article, I’ll share strategies for measuring impact, aligning with leadership priorities, and using insights to amplify the success of customer marketing programs.

Why measurement matters

As marketers, we’re all juggling multiple priorities, often with limited resources—whether it’s a lean budget, a small team, or both. In such an environment, taking time to measure might feel like a luxury. However, understanding the performance of your initiatives is not just beneficial; it’s essential.

Measurement helps validate the effort and resources you’re investing in customer marketing. It answers critical questions like: 

  • Is the content you’re creating resonating? 
  • Are your programs delivering the expected impact? 

Without these insights, it’s impossible to refine your strategies or justify the value of your team’s work to leadership.

Aligning with leadership priorities

One key to successful measurement is ensuring your work aligns with your company’s overarching goals and narratives. 

The content and programs your team develops should support the company’s priorities. This alignment ensures that your efforts are not just visible but also meaningful to leadership.

When measuring success, consider how your initiatives advance the broader company mission. For example, are your customer advocacy programs amplifying your brand’s value? Are they contributing to sales enablement or product feedback loops? Connecting your work to leadership’s focus areas strengthens your ability to secure resources and recognition.

Internal and external measurement

Most marketers naturally think about external measurement—how campaigns and programs perform with customers. While this is crucial, it’s equally important to evaluate the impact of your efforts.

Internally, your team may be producing a wealth of content for sales enablement, product launches, or cross-departmental initiatives. Analyzing how this content is used and valued internally can yield surprising insights. 

For example, are sales teams leveraging customer stories effectively? Is internal training content contributing to higher adoption rates? These metrics help demonstrate the broader influence of customer marketing.

Reporting: sharing the story

Once you’ve collected meaningful data, the next step is communicating it effectively. Reporting is not just about showcasing numbers—it’s about telling a story. 

Share insights on what’s working, what’s not, and why. Highlight wins and lessons learned, and frame your findings in a way that resonates with your audience—whether it’s your CMO, executive leadership, or cross-functional teams.

Consider using visuals, concise summaries, and real-world examples to bring your data to life. Effective reporting keeps stakeholders informed and fosters trust in your team’s contributions.

Why measure? Key benefits of tracking your content’s impact

Measurement is essential for any customer marketing team. Without it, we can’t demonstrate the value of our work or refine our strategies effectively. 

Here are the main reasons why measurement matters and how it can drive better outcomes:

Aligning with company priorities

One of the most important reasons to measure is to ensure alignment with key company priorities. If your team is creating a lot of content around a product or solution that isn’t a top priority for the company, it’s worth asking: why? 

Start by understanding your company’s fiscal-year goals, focus areas, and the narratives they want to drive in the market. Then, make sure your team’s efforts directly support those initiatives. By aligning your work with these priorities, you demonstrate how customer marketing contributes to broader business goals.

Evaluating performance

Measuring helps identify what’s performing well and what isn’t. By analyzing content performance, you can refine your strategies, double down on what works, and course-correct where needed. It’s about ensuring that your efforts deliver maximum impact.

Increasing visibility

For many of us, the workload means we’re often heads-down creating content. As a result, leadership might not always be aware of the stories we’re telling or the wins we’re achieving. 

Measurement provides a way to showcase your team’s output and its impact, keeping leadership informed and engaged.

Establishing baselines

If you’re not already measuring, it’s impossible to know what “good” looks like at your company. Establishing a baseline involves collaborating with subject matter experts across web, digital, and social teams to understand performance benchmarks. 

Once you have this baseline, you can track progress over time—whether quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year—and set realistic goals for improvement.

Gaining insights

Measurement isn’t just about numbers; it’s about uncovering insights. For example, if two case studies feature similar global brands but perform differently, ask why. Is it the title, the visual used on social media, or the placement on your website? 

These insights can guide future content creation and help your team avoid repeating mistakes.

Testing and optimizing content

A common pitfall in content marketing is letting underperforming pieces “die” without trying to improve them. 

If a case study or video isn’t gaining traction, there are simple ways to experiment and optimize: update the title, refresh the visuals, or repost with new framing. These small tweaks can have a big impact on engagement, even after the content is live.

Strengthening relationships through feedback

Measurement also opens the door to authentic, non-transactional touchpoints with customers and internal teams. For example, if a customer story or video is a high performer, let the customer know: “Your story was one of our best-performing pieces this quarter—just wanted to share the good news!” 

Similarly, share the win with the account team that supported the content: “This couldn’t have been done without your help, and it’s driving amazing results.” These acknowledgments build goodwill and foster stronger partnerships without adding to anyone’s workload.

By measuring the impact of your content, you not only validate your team’s efforts but also gain the insights needed to continuously improve and strengthen relationships across the organization.

Measuring impact: External and internal perspectives

Understanding how your content is performing—both externally and internally—is critical to ensuring your team’s time and resources are used effectively. 

At Databricks, we’ve developed a comprehensive approach to measurement, focusing on both external and internal metrics to guide our strategies and showcase impact.

External measurement

Web performance

One key area we track is web performance. We measure total visits to our customer content pages and analyze the journey visitors take before and after landing on these pages. 

  • Where are they coming from? 
  • What pages do they visit next? 

By understanding these patterns, we ensure that the journey flows logically and that the pages they encounter are updated with relevant and engaging content tailored to their industry or solution area.

Demographics also play a vital role. For example, if a significant portion of visitors comes from a particular industry or region, we assess whether we have enough stories representing those demographics. If not, this insight helps us prioritize content creation to fill those gaps.

YouTube insights

Our customer stories are featured prominently on our YouTube channel. Here, we monitor not just total views but also view duration. If our data shows that viewers aren’t watching past the first 30 seconds of a three-minute video, we consider shortening the videos or breaking them into digestible chapters. 

This data-driven approach ensures our efforts resonate with viewers and saves time by tailoring content to audience behaviors.

Social media metrics

We work closely with our social media team to track engagements, impressions, and engagement rates. These metrics guide our understanding of what’s working and help us set realistic OKRs and KPIs that align with what’s achievable in our organization.

Learning from underperforming content

While it’s tempting to focus only on high-performing content, some of our most valuable insights come from analyzing the pieces that didn’t perform well. By asking why—was it the title, the format, or the channel used?—we refine our future strategies and avoid repeating mistakes.

Internal measurement

Intranet and internal content performance

Internally, we measure traffic to our intranet pages to understand who within the company is accessing customer content. Ideally, it’s not just the marketing team but other departments too. If access is limited to a narrow audience, we reassess whether the content is reaching the right people.

Similarly, internal newsletters are a staple in many organizations, but they can be a time-sink if engagement is low. If your team’s newsletters are only reaching a handful of people, it might be worth reallocating that effort elsewhere.

Sales enablement materials

Sales enablement is another area where measurement is critical. We track how often decks, one-sliders, and presentations are accessed. If the data shows these resources aren’t being used effectively, we use that insight to adjust or even discontinue creating certain types of content. 

This data-driven approach ensures that our team’s time is spent on high-value activities.

Account value and reference activity

We’ve found a strong correlation between reference activity and overall account value. Measuring this helps validate the impact of customer advocacy programs. Accounts that participate in reference activities often show higher engagement and value, creating a compelling case for continued investment in these initiatives.

Employee engagement with social sharing tools

Using tools like Bamboo, we can track how employees engage with and share customer stories. This provides an additional layer of visibility into how internal teams amplify customer advocacy content.

The power of anecdotal feedback

Finally, while hard data is invaluable, anecdotal feedback brings the human element to life. We maintain a running document of positive messages from Slack, LinkedIn, or direct emails. Whether it’s a thank-you note from an account team or a customer praising their experience in a LinkedIn post, these stories make our impact tangible.

For example, we received a LinkedIn post from Brian Ames of General Motors, who spoke at our summit, sharing how much he enjoyed the experience. This type of feedback is not just gratifying but also provides a powerful narrative to complement the numbers in our quarterly business reviews (QBRs). 

Including anecdotal feedback in reports reminds leadership of the people behind the metrics and reinforces the broader impact of customer marketing.

By measuring both external and internal performance, we gain a holistic view of how our efforts are driving value. Combining data with human stories ensures we not only showcase the tangible outcomes but also the meaningful connections we create along the way.

Effective reporting: Aligning with leadership priorities

When it comes to reporting, alignment with your leadership team is crucial. Understanding what metrics they care about—and just as importantly, what they don’t—ensures that your reporting is both relevant and impactful.

Establishing a standardized framework

At Databricks, we’ve implemented a standardized framework for reporting. This framework, which has been pre-aligned with our leadership team, outlines the metrics they value most. 

Each quarter, we update this framework with new data, comparing performance year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. While it might seem straightforward, having a consistent, predictable format simplifies the process and makes it easier for leadership to digest and track progress over time.

This standardization also offers a dual benefit: it highlights the hard work your team is doing and ensures that their efforts are visible to those making strategic decisions.

The power of brevity

Executives are busy, and while we provide detailed decks, we recognize that most of them won’t open a 75-slide PowerPoint. Instead, we create a “TLDR” summary—a concise, digestible snapshot of the most important highlights. This includes a few key bullets that capture the metrics and insights leadership needs to know.

For those who want more details, the full deck is available, but the brief summary usually does the job. This approach has been well-received and ensures that our work stays top-of-mind without overwhelming anyone.

Creating a feedback loop

Reporting isn’t just about sharing metrics upward; it’s also an opportunity to give back to the customers and internal teams who contribute to your success. When a piece of content performs exceptionally well, we make a point of letting the relevant stakeholders know.

For example, sharing with a customer, “Your case study was one of the top-performing pieces this quarter!” is a simple but impactful touchpoint. Similarly, thanking sales teams for their collaboration—by highlighting how their support enabled a success story—builds goodwill and strengthens partnerships. 

These small gestures help create a continuous feedback loop, reinforcing the value of everyone’s contributions.

Key takeaways for effective advocacy through data and KPIs

As we bring everything together, here are the big takeaways to help you elevate your customer marketing strategy using data and KPIs:

1. Align with leadership on what to measure

The foundation of impactful reporting is alignment. Collaborate with your leadership team to identify the metrics that matter most to them. This ensures your efforts are focused on areas that support company priorities and resonate with decision-makers.

2. Showcase your team’s impact

Your team is creating a significant amount of content—make sure to demonstrate the tangible impact of that work. Highlight where your efforts align with company goals and where you’re driving meaningful results. This visibility is crucial for building trust and recognition for your team.

3. Let data guide your priorities

Use data to identify what’s resonating and what isn’t, both externally and internally. If a program or piece of content isn’t delivering value, let the data justify deprioritizing it. Similarly, focus your time and resources on areas where you’re seeing the greatest impact. Data can be a powerful tool for streamlining efforts and maximizing results.

4. Test and optimize low-performing content

Low-performing content isn’t a lost cause. Whether it’s a page on your website or a post on social media, revisit it with a critical eye. 

Update the title, refresh visuals, or adjust messaging, and then test it again. Repromoting content on social channels after some time can also breathe new life into it. Optimization is an ongoing process, not a one-and-done effort.

5. Share wins with stakeholders

When content performs exceptionally well, don’t miss the chance to share the success. Let customers know their case study or video was a top performer—without asking for anything in return. Similarly, acknowledge the contributions of account teams and share these wins with their leadership. It’s a simple yet effective way to foster goodwill and reinforce partnerships.

By following these steps, you’ll not only improve the effectiveness of your customer marketing but also strengthen relationships and demonstrate the critical role your team plays in driving business success. 

Data isn’t just about metrics—it’s about making informed decisions, celebrating wins, and continuously evolving your strategy.